


Hokage

by AmbientRain



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Coming of Age, Eventual Romance, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Politics, Promises, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-06 15:52:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15198155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmbientRain/pseuds/AmbientRain
Summary: "A valid enough reason for wanting to wear a hat as burdensome as this one," he lifted the Hokage's hat from his head and rested it on the table, "but tell me, Naruto, what makes you so sure that it will fit?" Uzumaki Naruto is dimwitted, rash, insolent, and everything else a Hokage cannot be. The Sandaime decides that won't do.





	1. Prologue

The wind was full of whispers, but they grew more distant with every step he took. Naruto heard the river before he saw it, growling like some feral beast. The dark water reflected the night sky and churned in a roaring torrent, crashing against the mossy concrete that lined either side of the canal.

He sat down on the damp grass just above the brush of the white swash and could feel the water soaking into his navy blue shorts. He didn't care. His head swam with desolation like the murky green waters, shifting and swirling as they passed by. Part of him wished that the river would rise up and snatch him away, that it would carry him to some faraway place where everyone loved him and no one ever looked down at him with those ugly glances.

That would certainly drown him though, Naruto never did learn how to swim. He was not entirely sure if he had ever learned how to live either. His mornings were stolen away by haunting dreams that kept him asleep even through his alarm, his afternoons and evenings were spent wandering the streets like a lost cat, looking into shop windows at ninja tools he could never hope to afford, or watching the other children play together at the park.

Once in a blue moon, Naruto would go into one of those shops to buy something, most often the flower shop as the tall man with the long ash blond hair was always kind to him and never gave him any wilted flowers.

One day Naruto had even gone up to the man and asked if he was his father, they did have the same hair after all. The blond man looked at Naruto strangely then, in a way he had never seen anyone look at him before. He had smiled at him, yet his smile seemed sad. How someone could smile yet still look so sad had puzzled him until the day he had pulled his first prank. Naruto was the one smiling then, laughing so hard tears filled his eyes, but the cold judgmental eyes of the villagers made him shiver and want to crawl away somewhere dark and lonely.

_Feeling is not always the same as showing,_ he thought, feeling the moist touch of the stems of grass beside him. The rain had pasted an hour before, but the grey clouds remained along with the wet mark they left on the green earth. A steady wind blew through his blond spiky hair and the leaves of grass danced in the dim greyness of the overcast sky.

It had been a long while since he'd pulled any sort of prank, but the stares never stopped. Only when Naruto meet their glares with his own did they bother themselves to look away. Perhaps that was why he caused so much havoc, to spite them and all their glares, or perhaps it was because he had no one to teach him otherwise.

His soul was untamed, unbalanced, he was unsure why he'd even been born. Sometimes the pointlessness of all his pranks, all his flowers, all his everything made him feel so insignificant and lost he felt the lightest tap of wind might blow him away. At the same time, the lack of purpose weighed him down like a thousand boulders, so he knew he would fall as soon as the wind began to carry him.

In a few weeks, he would begin his training at the ninja academy. Night or day, Naruto's mind was plagued by misgivings. There was little else he thought of. Sometimes he would sit for hours on end, imaging just what it would be like to be a ninja. The admiration and respect, the adventure and excitement, that he wanted more than anything.

All he needed to do was show up, to walk through the crowds of eyes, and sit in a classroom where children just like him would be waiting for him with the same contempt for him that their parents held. He'd never wanted something so badly, and had never felt so afraid of something.

His fingers pulled on the grass, ripping it from the ground and tossing it towards the river, but the wind stole it away before it could touch the water.

Naruto suddenly spotted a beetle crawling on his leg and flicked it away. A moment later he realized why he had not seen the beetle until then.

Fingers of pale moonlight pried open the clouds. There was a strange beauty to it, that of which Naruto did not know the words with which to describe.

Only the upper half of the moon could be seen, a lonely curve of light piercing out of the clouds, but it was the stars which drew his eyes and kept them. He had never seen so many before it seemed. One moment he thought he saw them form the shape of the leaf of Konohagakure, but when he blinked they seemed more the hourglass of Sunagakure, then the four-lined waves of Kirigakure and then the two rocks of Iwagakure.

_So many_. They were far, far away, he knew, but Naruto still felt like he could reach out and grab them. He knew he'd have to travel all the length between where he sat now and where they stood far above, but for all the distance between them, Naruto would walk it a hundred times over if it meant he might escape the endless sets of eyes that despised him for nothing. Or maybe all he needed to reach them was a pair of shoulders to stand on.

A profound silence fell over the world, the canal calmed, the wind subsided, and Uzumaki Naruto bathed in starlight for a time, until he walked off to find his shoulders. Not at the academy, after all, he didn't want to be just an academy student.

* * *

Sarutobi Hiruzen blinked his eyes open. The pounding on his door had been so frantic he had not had any time to clear them of crust, but instead of urgent news, he found Uzumaki Naruto waiting outside the Hokage's quarters.

His first thought of how the boy had gotten past all his ANBU. _Weasel has the watch tonight,_ he thought, and understood immediately.

"Is there something you want, Naruto?" the Sandaime Hokage asked.

The young blond flashed a toothy grin, his mouth opened and closed. For half a heartbeat, Hiruzen thought this was another one of his pranks, but he knew that couldn't be it when he saw that the boy's face showed more bravado than mischievousness.

"I'm gonna be H-"

Hiruzen silenced him with a single forefinger to the boy's lips.

"There are people still sleeping here, Naruto," he whispered. After a moment the blond looked down at the finger over his lips, then back up at his Hokage, and then nodded. It was only then that Hiruzen let the child speak again.

"I'm gonna be Hokage," the boy spoke the words Hiruzen had heard him say so many times before in an urgent whisper, "and I need you to show me how to do it!"

That was something he hadn't heard from the boy before. His exclamations of ambition were usually followed by a grin or a finger pointed at the Hokage Monument. Consideration of how exactly he planned on becoming Hokage as well as seeking out the current Hokage for advice was nothing extraordinarily brilliant, but for Naruto, it was a start.

_Perhaps he has some of his father in him after all,_ Hiruzen thought. _Still …_

"Naruto, if you are going to become Hokage then you should know how busy our lives are. If I had the time to teach you how to throw shuriken and kunai or show you how to perform powerful jutsu, I would," he knelt down to Naruto's height, "but I don't. Besides you're entering the academy soon, you'll learn much and more there."

Naruto frowned, his lips pushed forward in a pout. "They don't like me, just like everyone else. They won't teach me anything, but you like me, right Ojiisan? And you're the Hokage so you can teach me way more than they ever could!"

_"Promise me, Hiruzen,"_ Minato had begged, his voice weak and words echoed in his mind whenever he glimpsed a flash of yellow hair passing through the streets and he remembered the promise that he and a dozen others had made on that terrible night, and had failed to keep.

_He is too young for me to teach and far too reckless._ At times Hiruzen wondered if Naruto would or should even be accepted into the academy, but Danzo had insisted that the boy was of far too great value to be wasted as a carpenter's apprentice. H _e would've been safe then, and watched, but even more than Danzo, Naruto himself would never have accepted it._

His successor's words pounded in his head like a great drum. _"Promise me, Hiruzen."_

"Perhaps I could teach you a thing or two, if you have the wits to learn," the Sandaime finally said. "Since you woke me up so early, I won't have anything to do for a few hours."

Naruto's eyes sparkled with tears of joy. "Really?" he exclaimed, forgetting the need for quiet until Hiruzen reminded him with a frown. "Thank you so, so much, Ojiisan!" he whispered cheerfully. "Let's go to the training field, there's this spot where no one else goes that I always … "

Before he could finish the Sandaime had turned around and gone back into his apartments, leaving the door open for the boy. "Come drink some tea with me."

* * *

Anxiously, Uzumaki Naruto made his way into the Hokage's apartments. They seemed oddly plain for a man who the ninja world named a "God of Shinobi". A chestnut brown trestle table with a chair at either end was positioned just beside a casement window and below a fluorescent lamp. The room smelled of wood and lilacs, of home.

_One day, it will be my home._

"Sit," the Hokage's voice called from another room. Naruto could hear the sizzle of steaming water and smell the ginger and ginkgo. He sat.

After a minute or two, the Hokage returned with two empty red cups. Naruto's leg began to shake with impatience as the old man left again to get the teapot. He poured his own first, then walked over to Naruto to pour his. Eager to finish the tea and be done with it, Naruto grabbed the cup and held it up for the Hokage.

The brown tea came out in a gentle pour, but did not stop pouring even when the tea came spilling out and singed Naruto's hand.

Naruto gave a yelp of pain and wrenched his hand back. The cup bounced off the oaken wood floor, but did not shatter.

"What was that?!"

"You," said the Hokage. "There's always so much happening, so much entering and leaving all at once, so much splashing and spilling. It retains nothing." He bent down and picked up the fallen cup, setting it on the table. "See here now." His finger gestured to the empty cup. "It is empty, yes, but it is only then, when it is still and unmoving, that it can hope to retain anything."

Naruto arched an eyebrow at the red cup. "So I should stand still to become Hokage?"

The Sandaime sighed, and poured Naruto his tea again, this time not spilling a drop. "Tell me, Naruto," the Hokage began as he walked back to his own chair and tea, "why do you even want to become Hokage? Look what it has done to a mighty warrior such as myself." He drew one long finger across the dark wrinkles that gathered below his right eye.

"To prove all those nasty people wrong, to show them I'm just as good as any of them!" Naruto exulted, yet as soon as the words came out he knew they were wrong.

The Hokage looked thoughtful then, as ponderous as if he were tasting the quality of a food dish set before him. "A noble enough goal I suppose, rebelling against an injustice done against you. A valid enough reason for wanting to wear a hat as burdensome as this one." He lifted the Hokage's hat from his temples, revealing a head of hair that had plainly once been dark-brown but now stood spiked and peppered with grey. "But tell me, Naruto, what makes you so sure that it will fit?"

Naruto's mouth opened and closed. When he saw the Hokage's eyes flicker in amusement at his hesitation, he frowned and said, "I'm going to be a ninja, I'll be so strong and brave that no one will ever attack our village ever again!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed once more, shaking his head. "Naruto, tell me how many faces are carved on the Hokage mountain."

"Four," Naruto said. He didn't even need to think about it, so much time had he spent looking up at the famous grim stone faces of Konoha.

"And how many mountains would the world need to carve upon them the faces of every ninja who had ever been strong and brave?"

Naruto groaned and leaned back in his chair, placing his hands behind his head. "Ojiisan, you said you'd teach me, not lecture me on mountains, dattebayo."

The old man took a sip of tea. "If you had the wits to learn, I also said." He held the steaming cup just below his bearded chin. "Is a ninja simply someone who can fold his fingers and toss knives?"

Naruto did not reply, but his silence seemed to give the Hokage all the answer he needed.

"I suppose you cannot be faulted for the sins of a generation. No doubt you've overheard some chūnin or genin who've never seen a war bragging about the newest way to breathe fire," the Sandaime sighed and placed the cup down. "A ninja must have more than strength and bravery. He must be loyal and clever, attentive and open-minded, disciplined and just, and _patient_ , Naruto. And a Hokage must be even more." His small brown eyes considered the blond-haired boy who sat across from him. "Your heart cries out for adventure, excitement, but these are not the wants of a Hokage, not the needs of a village."

Naruto rested his elbow on the table, his hand cupping his cheek as he looked out the Hokage's window. From where he sat he could see all across Konohagakure, every shop he'd entered or street he walked, he saw now. Dawn had begun to creep over the edge of the world, sending a fiery orange haze to meet with the shades of deep blue that still darkened the sky above.

"I've known you since you were just a baby, Naruto. Even when you took your first steps, I saw the same thing I see now." The old man sighed, but Naruto's eyes were still fixed on the village and its surrounding forests. "A young boy, still innocent and needing of love and protection, yet always … looking. For parents, for siblings, for friends, and most of all, his future. Always looking ahead, eyes fixed on the horizon … and never _here_ , where they needed to be!"

The shift in tone made Naruto turn his attention back to the old man, only to realize that his elbow had tipped over his cup of tea, spilling it all over again. Naruto jumped back before the hot liquid could touch him, knocking back the chair he'd sat in. The tea streamed across the old wooden table until dripping off its edge.

The way the Hokage stared him down made him want to go away inside like he'd done so many times before, but this meant too much to him to run away. "I'm only six, you can show me how to be all those things you said. No one else will, not the academy, not anyone!"

The Sandaime Hokage, God of Shinobi, looked at Naruto strangely, until he stood up and went to stare out the window, to look over his village. For a long time he did not speak nor move, only stared as Naruto stood there and the tea fell from the table in a steady _drip, drip, drip._

"As I told you before, a Hokage's time is scarce," he finally said, and Naruto felt his heart thump, "but … when I find myself undisturbed by my duties, I will call upon you."

Naruto could have leapt for joy then, he could have shouted at the top of his lungs in a great triumphant cry, but he remembered how the Hokage had shushed him before, and simply ran over to hug the old man. As his arms wrapped around the Sandaime's stomach, Naruto heard a sharp wheeze, and soon a hand on his shoulder pulled him back.

"Before you thank me, you should know there are terms to this … arrangement." The Hokage cleared his throat. "I will only be doing this for as long as you are undergoing the process becoming a ninja, so if you were to drop out … "

"I won't, I'll ace every class, dattebayo!"

The Hokage looked at him the same way one might look at a fish who had proclaimed its ability to fly, but simply continued on with, "This goes as well for when you graduate. Your Jōnin instructor should take over my roll just as well, and you'll be almost a grown man by then. I doubt you'll want some ancient old man talking down to you then as much as you do now."

Naruto gave his Ojiisan a toothy grin. "No, I won't. Besides that won't be until forever."


	2. Them & I

A flock of birds flapping their wings accompanied Uzumaki Naruto as he stepped outside into daylight's warm embrace, as soft and gentle as a mother's arms. Two dark tabby cats he'd named Eric and Arik rested in the sun beside three short stairs that led to his apartment. The Hokage had given him the place as a birthday present for turning seven but neglected to mention the two furry inhabitants already lived there. Naruto brought a handful of turkey out with him every morning for the cats, who looked so alike only their names told them apart.

"Sorry," he said, tossing the food on to the ground. "I can't stay and feed it to you, just eat and I'll be back later with more." Arik and Eric seemed not to hear him as they began to tear away at the cold meat. As he walked the streets of Konoha, the sun climbed higher and higher in the distance.

Dawn was a cobalt blue from horizon to zenith, mixed with a sleepy glow of pink and gold that heralded the rising sun behind the four stone faces of the Hokage Rock. The length between his home and academy required rising early and Naruto vowed he'd be the first one there after Ojiisan told him it'd make a better impression on the teachers. He had awaited the sunrise of this day for as long as he could remember.

Today would be the day he would truly begin his path to become a shinobi.

_And then, Hokage._

A burst of laughter left his lips and Naruto began to all but skip down the street. As he went, the sounds of a village waking grew louder around him.

On his way to the academy, he passed through one of the poorer parts of the village. It was said the district once belonged to a great clan, but they had died out during the last war. Fountains periodically dotted the streets, with statues of great mythical beasts crowning them. Yet each and every one of their pools was dry and the statues had begun to crack and fall apart, so Naruto didn't recognize half the beasts that must have once seemed so powerful and majestic above pools of sparkling water.

Then there was the smell. It hung in the air, thick and heavy, always present. Naruto smelled dried meat, rotten fruit, waste overgrown with maggots. He could have deciphered more, but the stench was suffocating, so he picked up his skipping pace into a run.

The further he ran; the more signs of prosperity began to return to the city. Soon he was running upon stone instead of mud and dirt. The fountains disappeared entirely, but the homes and shops he passed looked less abandoned and collapsed with every step he took. There were people outside with him too, opening the shutters to their stores, watering the plants on their porch, or simply sipping from their coffee cups as they absorbed the morning warmth. They were so distracted by whatever it was they were doing that none of them took notice of the flash of yellow that passed through the street.

Before he knew it, the great mass of buildings that made up the shinobi academy stood before him. Naruto sank down against a tree to catch his breath, a pair of small fallen branches his only company.

After a few minutes of wheezing and cleaning sweat, Naruto got up and walked his sore legs to the academy's front door.

The yard was as empty as it was quiet. The soft sound of leaves and grass pressing against his feet was accompanied only by the chirping of two sparrows that rested in the tree he'd sat beneath.

"Naruto?" a voice asked. Naruto turned.

Umino Iruka was not an old man, but the wide scar that stretched across his cheeks and nose made him seem experienced beyond his years. He was walking towards the doors just as Naruto was, dangling a chain of keys from his hand. Naruto scarcely knew the man, but he had proctored an exam or two Naruto had taken to get into the academy and seemed to be good at remembering names.

"What are you doing here so early?" Iruka asked.

"Early bird gets the worm!" Naruto grinned, feeling a bit more than proud that he recalled the saying so quickly.

Iruka response was half a laugh and half a sigh. "Not if there aren't any worms in the dirt."

Naruto looked at the man, confused. "Of course there are worms in the dirt, there are worms everywhere. Here, look." Iruka called out in protest, but by then his hand was already dug deep into the earth, swishing and feeling the soil for any sign of life.

"Okay, okay, you've made your point!" Iruka exclaimed, pulling Naruto's hand from the dirt. He sighed again, "I only meant that there's no one here yet, Naruto. I open shop." He dangled the keys in front of his face.

"Oh." Naruto suddenly felt a deal more foolish than proud. He'd made sure to go to sleep early last night, as to not wake up late and miss his first class, but now was faced with the opposite predicament. "I guess I'll just wait then." There was a swing-set hung about one of the trees in the yard, he could spend his time there.

Naruto began to walk off when Iruka stopped him. "That won't do," the scarred man said. "Come on, I'll find something for you to do."

Iruka liked him, he decided. The man was one of those rarer sorts of adults who did not despise Naruto. Though his opinion of the man did sour slightly when it turned out that the 'something' was starting up the coffee machine and taking a tour of the academy, or at least that was how Iruka put it. During this 'tour', he was to perform a routine check-up, peeking inside each of the rooms to make sure there was nothing out of ordinary.

"This key-chain has something for every lock in this building, but you'll only be needing this one for all the classrooms and offices." Iruka unhooked the chain and removed a single silvery key. "You're probably not going to find anything in those rooms, but you'll be familiar with the academy grounds by the end of it."

 _If there's going to be nothing there, then why do I have to check the stupid rooms?_ Naruto brooded over the map Iruka had given him as he walked.

Each section of the academy was drawn in a different color, but as Naruto walked the halls he saw only grey. The classrooms were each an identical copy of the other, boasting three rows of seats facing a single blank chalkboard with one lonely chair for the instructor. The only diversity present in the academy seemed to be in the offices of its administrators, their embellishment standing in stark contrast to the classrooms they administrated. Some of the rooms he passed the key didn't work on, but Iruka had told him all he needed to do was tap on the window and the lights would turn on.

Naruto was almost finished with his round of the academy when he came upon what must have been the storage rooms. He tapped one window and saw walls lined with books, and the next room over, hundreds of scrolls stacked high upon shelves. He found himself wanting to know what written in those scrolls.

Naruto found Iruka turning the pages of a file, legs swung over a white countertop while he leaned back in his chair. His key-chain was hanging loosely from his wrist and a dozen newly sharpened pencils leaned in a holding case on the counter.  
Iruka's eyes lifted to meet his own. "Everything check out?" he asked.

Naruto nodded. "How much longer until people start coming, Iruka-sensei?"

"A couple of hours at least." Iruka folded the file and tossed it on the counter. "I'll be frank with you, Naruto, I don't know exactly what to do with you until then. Usually, I just make sure all the files are organized and stuff … "

"I know," Naruto broke in, doing his best to hide the wicked grin that threatened to take shape on his lips. He pointed to the door. "There are two sticks out there I saw that we can use as swords. We can train with them!"

"A stick is not a sword," the academy teacher countered. "I mean, they're both long and pointy, but what real lessons could you learn from stick-fighting?"

Naruto's grin broke through. "Stick 'em with the pointy end."

Iruka raised a thin brown eyebrow at him, then shrugged the key-chain off his wrist. "On second thought, it's probably in the best interest of academy safety that you don't think of just that when going into training."

Naruto led him to the sticks, tossing the heavier one to Iruka. The chūnin looked at the stick the same way he'd look at a broom someone had told him to clean a sewer with. "I don't consider myself an expert swordsman, but my friend Hayate has shown me the basics along with a few tricks here and there. The rest you'll have to wait until your old enough to begin combat training," he said, breaking off the needles of the wood branch. "Or you could make something up."

Naruto watched him and did the same with his own stick. "I think I'll do that. People have made new ways to fight before, why can't I?"

Iruka's face grew stern then. "Those shinobi were masters at their craft, not six-year-olds. You probably couldn't even lift a proper sword, Naruto. Don't try anything dangerous."

"It's a good thing a stick's not a sword then," Naruto replied, and Iruka-sensei sighed once more, but the hints of a smile tugged on the edges of his face.

Time passed to the rustling of leaves beneath their feet and the sharp _tap_ their sticks made as they clashed again and again. Iruka spoke of how the body was divided into sections and how each section had a way by which it could be assaulted or defended.

"A!" Iruka shouted, and Naruto blocked a swing at the side of his head. Then "B!" and Naruto blocked a jab at his right arm. "D!" he warned, but Naruto was too slow and received a painful smack on his right thigh.

Sweat blinding his vision, Naruto allowed himself to fall back. "I think … " he huffed, "I think I'm done for now."

Iruka looked at him quizzically. "We've been at this for less than half an hour. I thought you might be more-"

Just then, a great rumble echoed throughout the yard. For half an instant, Iruka looked as terrified as if an earthquake had struck the village, but his wide eyes regained their impartial look when he realized the noise had come from Naruto's stomach.

"Naruto … did you eat anything this morning?"

Naruto pushed himself back onto his feet. "No," he said, legs shaking like jello. Iruka had to lend an arm to help him regain his balance. "I usually just eat something mid-day, and I'm fine then. I don't know why … "

"I suppose you're getting your first shinobi lesson early, Naruto." Iruka let the stick fall from his hand. "Never fight on an empty stomach."

"Oh, that makes sense." Naruto did his best to seem embarrassed. The red hue his cheeks turned from the exercise did an excellent job at appearing as a blush. "Sorry, Iruka-sensei."

"Don't worry about it, Naruto." The scarred man gave him a friendly smile. "You're still a child, I can't expect you to think too far ahead."

Naruto smiled, but his stomach only growled once more.

"How about I get you something to eat?" asked Iruka suddenly.

Naruto paused, looking like he was giving it thought. "Well, there's this one place, but it's across the village and-"

A cocksure grin spread across Iruka's lips. "One of the perks of being a shinobi is that distances mean a whole lot less than they would to civilians. What's this place's name, Naruto?"

He put a dirt-covered finger to his chin. "I forget, but it's got red and maybe blue curtains hanging outside. You should ask for their Asahikawa. It's really amazing, you should get one for yourself too!"

"I'll pass." Iruka threw a thumb over his shoulder at the academy. "There's a bathroom in the hallway to your left, go clean yourself for when I get back." The chūnin disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

When he was sure the chūnin was gone, Naruto allowed himself a quick titter of laughter before he ran back into the building. He washed his hands clean, wiped the sweat from his brow, and returned to lobby where the key-chain to all the rooms in the academy sat right where Iruka had left them.

The storage rooms were smaller than they appeared from the outside, Naruto realized as the slid the metal door open. The scrolls were each organized by the color. He supposed someone who was meant to be there would have known what those colors meant. Instead, Naruto had to go through each of them until he found what he was looking for. Finally, his hand pinched the paper of one purple-colored scroll and pulled.

 _Completely blank_ , he thought, ecstatic.

One of the scrolls he'd gone through had said something about 'kunai' and he recognized 'taijutsu' as well. He reached for that one, and the two others beside it, and began to copy. Every other word was one he did not understand, but they were only words, only strokes of ink written by some dead man, and Naruto was there to copy, not to understand. That would come later. His handwriting was a scribble-scratch that only he could understand and making it smaller to fit more writing on the scroll only made it look worse, but perhaps that was for the better.

When Iruka returned, he entered the academy with a type of ramen that was sold in Konoha, unlike the one Naruto had suggested to him.

"Naruto, none of the places with red curtains and or blue had that kind of ramen," he said, a little more than a hint of annoyance present in his voice.

"Really?" Naruto asked from where he sat on the white countertop. "Not even the ones with the yellow sun in the middle of the flag?"

That gave Iruka pause. "I didn't see any with a yellow sun actually."

"Oh," Naruto mumbled out the word. "I guess they closed down then. There never were too many people eating there, and I only saw the one old lady there working."

Guilt filled Iruka's brown eyes. He slid Naruto the ramen across the counter. "Tell you what, next time you want some ramen, I'll take you to the best shop in town. Not a lot of people go there either, so it won't be crowded."

Naruto gave the man his brightest smile. As they ate, Iruka sheepishly apologized for sending Naruto to do his job for his routine check-up. Naruto waved away his concerns.

"If I'm gonna become Hokage one day, I should know how to walk some halls and tap a few windows," he said with a mouthful of noodles.

"Yes, and a Hokage should also learn some manners," Iruka shot back just as Naruto slurped down another noodle. They shared a laugh after that, and the chūnin never noticed how only eleven of the pencils remained in the case beside him.

* * *

\- Several Years Later -

* * *

The yard was singing with the sounds of practice swords.

A blade darkened in the sunlight as it swung at him, but it was too slow, and Naruto had seen the attack coming a mile away. He leaned back, the blow missed his nose by an inch, and he brought his own sword up to crack hard against the wrist his opponent's outstretched arm.

Yosuke's sword clattered against the ground. "You broke my wrist, you little demon!" the black-haired youth growled through the pain he was surely feeling in the hand he clutched against his chest.

"Let me see." Kayumi Hiroji was a heavy-set man with a voice as scratchy and gruff as the black stubble on his cheeks. He walked over and grabbed Yosuke's hand. "Just a bruise," the weapons and taijutsu sensei said after a moment of inspection. "Sojuro, you're up next."

The chubby boy in the green short-sleeved shirt stepped forward. He fixed Naruto with a glare, the same hate-filled look that had chased Naruto all his life.

 _I'm not some stupid baby anymore though._ He returned the glare. When Hiroji shouted, "begin!", Naruto launched into an offensive, kicking up a cloud of dirt with his heal.

Sojuro raised his dull sword to counter the charge, but Naruto went under and slashed at the back of his thigh. The boy held onto his sword, but fell forward, grasping at the leg Naruto had cut.

"The future of Konoha," Hiroji grumbled darkly. "With all that weight, Sojuro, you must be as strong as an ox, but you fight like a weasel. Next."

Two more were sent against him, but both Naruto beat. Beads of sweat matted blond hair to his forehead as he handed the practice sword to Hiroji. The grizzled chūnin snatched the weapon out of his hand. Hiroji hated him, Naruto was sure of it. He had only transferred up from a lower class a few months ago with the coming of the new semester, but he had already beaten every student in the man's class.

 _He hates me because I already surpassed all the kids he's trained,_ Naruto decided, frowning at the sensei's back as he went over to the boys he'd beaten today to collect their swords.

Yosuke was still holding his wrist, while Sojuro stood, leaning on his left leg. Stood together as they were, Naruto wondered how many of those he faced today would ever become genin. Teijo was fast but lacked discipline, Sojuro was strong but as slow as a turtle. Yosuke swung any weapon he used like a club, and red-headed Ryu seemed never to know what to do with the blade in his hand, no matter how many times Hiroji yelled at him. Yet whenever their sensei commented on the few times Naruto had done something wrong, his feet too far apart or his grip too low on the hilt, they all snickered like they could ever hope of touching him in the yard.

They all hated him, Naruto knew, and he hated them back.

Hiroji was placing each of the practice swords back on a wooden rack when Naruto walked but behind him. "Hiroji-sensei?"

The big man turned, looking down at Naruto with unimpressed eyes like chips of wood. "Yes?"

Naruto made sure he was standing straight when he asked, "May I transfer out of your class? I believe I have learned everything I can here."

"No."

He expected that sort of answer. Naruto had asked twice every day for the past week, and each time had been met with a short and simple refusal. "That girl with the pink hair wasn't here today or yesterday or the day before," Naruto began, springing his trap. "I saw her here at the academy this morning though. She was too smart to have dropped a level, so you must have transferred her up."

On his first day at the shinobi academy, Naruto had been placed with the lowest of the low, most likely because of his abysmal entrance test results. Over the years though, he had made his way up the ladder. And I won't be stopped here.

"I did. She has what it takes to mingle with the snot-nosed clan children who infest the higher level classes. You don't," Hiroji said icily.

All the confidence he gathered from his victories turned to fury. The sensei was acting like being the best was somehow a crime. "I can beat anyone in this class," Naruto said in a cold rage.

"No, those others will just lose." The chūnin pointed at the others in the training yard.

Naruto felt his jaw clench. He turned to the four boys, his disgust for them growing ten-fold. "May I be excused?" he asked, his stare unmoving.

"We're done here anyway. Go clean yourself in the locker room."

With that, Naruto turned heel and left the yard. The long hallways of the shinobi academy were not so empty as when Naruto had first walked them, but he felt more alone now than he ever did that day so long ago when Iruka-sensei and he had first begun their lessons. The pony-tailed chūnin had been gone for three weeks now, taking his second jonin exam. Loneliness followed him outside the academy grounds as well, clinging to his heels and trying to drag him down, as his only other friend, the Hokage, was away on a diplomatic mission to Suna.

 _I'll be fine without them,_ he told himself as he entered the locker room, thinking of the scrolls he had hidden under his bed and the lessons Iruka-sensei and Ojiisan had taught him, though he saw the former much more often than the latter. He changed out of the tight black t-shirt and white gym-shorts he used for training, trading them for the orange jumpsuit he always wore.

The Hokage had offered him a dozen times his pick of the finest clothing stores in the village, but each time Naruto refused him. He had been to those stores and seen their wares. Part of him wanted nothing more than to dress in the soft velvets and exquisite embroidery they offered, but the looks the shopkeepers gave reminded Naruto they had no love for him. He would wear these ugly jumpsuits for the rest of his life, so long as it meant not giving a lick of cash to those people and their ugly stares.

Just thinking about them made him angry. _I'm not a-_

"Demon boy!"

For a moment, Naruto thought he said the words aloud, then he realized his lips were closed. He turned.

Sojuro loomed over him, his small black pig eyes glaring daggers down at Naruto. Three others stood on either side of him, pimple-faced Teijo, Ryu with the cut lip Naruto had given him, and Yosuke, who was still cradling the hand Naruto had 'broke'. All four were taller than him, but Naruto was more afraid of monsters in his dreams than the four children who stood before him.

"Yes, fat boy?" he asked innocently.

The fat boy moved faster than Naruto thought possible. He slammed Naruto against the locker, his huge meaty hands grasping him tight by the collar.

"You've got a mouth to you, demon boy," said Teijo, grabbing Naruto's right arm while Teijo held his left against the metal. "Maybe we should knock some of those pretty teeth out, eh? See how much you like to talk then."

"I could lose all my teeth and still look better than you."

"And where do you get those looks from?" Yosuke wondered. "Your mommy or your daddy? Which one gave you that head of piss hair?" He chuckled. "Guess we'll never know. They wanted you around just as much as the rest of us do."

Naruto was about to spit in Yosuke's eyes went a sharp voice echoed through the locker room. "Put him down," it commanded in iron tones. " _Now_."

The grip on his jumpsuit loosened, and Naruto fell to the floor. When he stood back up, a man in a chūnin vest was looking over him. "Are you hurt?" the chūnin asked. The man was tall and fair-haired, with green eyes and olive skin tanned by sunlight. Naruto shook his head. "Good," he said. "Run off now, before I come to my senses and have you all expelled."

Naruto turned to leave out the door opposite of the other boys when the chūnin called out, "Not you." Somehow Naruto knew he was talking about him.

"Is there something wrong Mr. … "

"Kenzo." The man sat down on a bench in front of the row of locker's opposite to the ones Naruto stood in front of. "I saw you fighting today, in the yard."

"You did?"

"Aye, and yesterday, and the day before. Your chakra control could be improved upon, but your skill at arms is quite extraordinary."

So soft-spoken and dispassionate was the compliment that for a moment Naruto was unsure whether it was praise or mockery, but the words still gave rise to hope. _Maybe this chūnin can get me into a higher class instead of that sour old prune._

"You saw how well I fought, I don't belong with those boys or anyone else in this class."

"Oh, really?" Kenzo's tone seemed obliviously curious. "Why is that?

Naruto nodded his head. "They all hate me, and, well … I … "

"Hate them too? Don't be so shy, child. Hatred is something all shinobi find common ground in." A sharp exhale left Kenzo's nostrils, but his eyes did not laugh when he did. "But do tell, what reason is there for you hate those boys, Naruto?"

"They said that my mom and dad-"

"Didn't want you," Kenzo finished for him. "I overheard. And who's to say they did, or that they didn't? You? Your parents were who they were, no words can change that. You never knew them, no more than Teijo knew them, and no more than Ryu knew his." The chūnin must have seen the surprise that Naruto felt. "Did you think you were the only orphan Konoha decided to put to use?" He sat forward. "Sojuro spends all his time outside the academy out on the street selling meats and vegetables from his father's farm. His mother died in the Kyūbi attack, so he tends to the stall alone. Teijo was the youngest son of six, but his parents lost two boys on their first mission as genin and three to the Kyūbi. Yosuke's family is alive and well, but his father is sure he isn't his son, and would beat him bloody every turn of the moon before the mother filed for divorce a year ago."

"I don't care," Naruto snapped. "They hate me because I beat them, they hate because their stupid mom or stupid dad or friends or whoever told them I'm some kind of demon. I'm not a demon!"

Kenzo's ordinary face seemed to grow amused at that. "Hate you?" He made a soft humming sound with his lips, then said, "I think not. In fact, I believe those boys are terrified of you, Naruto. You said it yourself: all their life they've been told you're a blond-haired demon with piercing blue eyes out to bring them harm. And what have you done to prove them wrong? You certainly fight like a demon, and are as black-hearted of a bully as I've ever seen."

"A _bully_?!" The word felt so wrong Naruto felt like he was going to choke on it. "They were the ones who attacked me, all four of them ganged up on me!"

"Four," Kenzo began, "four who you put to shame in the yard, four who've likely never touched a sword outside of the academy. Are you proud of humiliating untrained children?"

"They're all older than me," Naruto protested, but his resolve had weakened, and his voice was wary. "It's not my fault they don't train."

"Older, and stronger yes, except maybe for Ryu, but I'm sure Iruka taught you how to fight stronger boys. He mentions you and your progress often." Iruka hadn't taught him any of that. Naruto had managed to sneak into the storage room a dozen more times over the years, each time using roughly the same method as before, and once had found a scroll on sword fighting. He and Iruka began training together less often after that.

"Now tell me, do you think Ryu, Sojuro, Teijo, or Yosuke have any 'Iruka-sensei's in their lives?" Kenzo asked calmly, studying him, watching his every movement for his response, spoken or not. "Do you think the sticks they played with in their backyards prepared them for your parries and low-cuts?"

 _A stick is not a sword,_ Naruto remembered sullenly. "No," he admitted, all the anger that had once put strength in his voice gone. "I just didn't think-"

"Then you ought to start." Kenzo swiftly rose from the bench and left him there.

The walk home seemed to be longer than it had been the day before, the sky shifting to a dim purple. That night Naruto dreamt he was back at the academy practice yard, but this time the towering buildings around him were engulfed by fire, and he had two heads instead of one. His left head was the head of a frightened boy, weeping and coughing as the smoke entered his lungs, but his right was the head of a great fox with fur as orange as the flames themselves, laughing as the village burned. He cut Yosuke in half, spilled open Sojuro's big belly, lopped off Teijo's ugly head, and drove his sword through Ryu's heart. It was only when he looked down into the red puddle of dark blood that gathered beneath his feet that Naruto realized his two heads had become one. The monstrous face that stared back at him then made him cry out in terror, and the wet tears that ran down cheeks turned to steam in the heat.

He woke, and shivered.

The next day, as the academy lunchroom bustled with noise and chatter, Naruto passed by his usual spot at the table where he sat alone. Sojuro was distracted, talking to Teijo with a mouthful of peas about some girl he liked, but when he finally noticed the smaller, blond boy had sat next to him, he swallowed hard and began to choke. Naruto slapped him on the back, once then twice before the chubby boy spat up a handful of green peas across the table onto Ryu's red shirt.

"I'm sorry if I frightened you," Naruto said before passing Ryu the napkins from his own plate.

Sojuro's broad face was twisted in confusion. For a few moments he did not speak, until he asked, "What do you want, demon boy?"

Naruto felt his anger rise, but only for an instant. "I'm sorry about your leg, Sujuro, and your lip, Ryu," he said, his pride swallowed. "I shouldn't have hit your wrist that hard either, Yosuke, or your shoulder, Teijo." He reached into one of the folds of his orange jumpsuit and produced a set of four scrolls. Ryu was the first to take his, nervous fingers grasping at the scroll before quickly yanking it back. Once he had taken his scroll, the others shortly followed.

"I found a fighting style for each of you, one that accounts for your strengths and weaknesses," Naruto explained as their eyes read over the text. His early waking had given him plenty of time to copy the information and to make sure his handwriting wasn't his usual incomprehensible scribble-scratch.

Yosuke looked up from his scroll, brown eyes brimming with suspicion. "You're just telling us how to fight so you'll know how to beat us."

"I already know how to beat you," Naruto said without thinking. For a moment he thought Yosuke would throw the scroll back at his face, but instead, Teijo let out a bark of laughter.

"He's got you there, Yosuke," the pimple-faced boy said, still laughing. Soon Sojuro joined in, along with Ryu, whose soft chuckling could barely be heard over Sojuro's huge bellows of laughter.

Finally, Yosuke smiled feebly and shrugged his shoulders. "I guess I couldn't get any worse."

Naruto shook his head. "You've got better form than most when attacking, you just need to work on defending."

"I'm sorry for … for pinning you up against the locker yesterday," Sojuro licked his lips nervously, like he expected Naruto to suddenly recall the incident and pull out a sword to beat him with.

"Don't apologize for that," Teijo quipped. "Now we know how to beat him: just have four of us for every one of him and it'll be a walk in the park."

"Maybe, but it's still cowardly, gaining up on someone with those numbers," Sojuro said grimly.

"You're not a coward," Naruto told the larger boy and saw his thick neck flush.

"Blonde has the right of it," Teijo said. "Cowards know when to run, though a bit too early most often. You're too much of a ditz to know when to run, Sojuro." He smiled teasingly.

"I am not!"

"If a hundred Kumo shinobi attacked the village and you were standing at the front gates when it happened-"

"I would run!" Sojuro proclaimed. "I'd run away so fast they'd never even see … " he stopped, realizing what he had just said as Teijo burst into laughter.

"I … " Ryu had barely spoken a word as long Naruto had known him, so it took a moment for him to realize who was speaking. Turning to look at the redhead, Naruto urged him on with a nod. " … I don't think I could do any of these moves … or stand the way it says I should stand."

"Anyone with two working legs can stand," replied Naruto. "All you need is someone to show you how."

As the four he sat with looked down at their scrolls, eyes trailing back and forth over the words, Naruto looked over to a table sat in the corner of the lunchroom. A dozen backs were turned to him, one of them being the pink haired girl who had transferred out of his class. Beside her sat a girl in a purple blouse with platinum-blond hair he always saw at the flower shop but never had the courage to speak to. Around them he saw the symbols on the backs of jackets and shirts, marking the wearer as a Nara, or an Inuzuka, or an Aburame, or any other of the great shinobi clans in Konoha.

For a brief moment, he locked eyes with a pale boy with black hair and blacker eyes dressed in a navy blue collar shirt. Eyes glued to the one another from the across the room, they both remained that way until Naruto noticed Sojuro poking at his arm.

After turning away to answer the chubby boy's question about what one of the words on his scroll meant, Naruto looked back, only to see that the pale boy was no longer there. He glimpsed someone wearing blue leaving through the double doors of the lunch hall, but he was uncertain if it was him.

Naruto took one last look at the lunch table across the room, at where he had wished to be for so long, then back to where he sat, at the faces of the four common-born hooligans he sat with, and somehow, he felt content.


End file.
